Sergei in the urn

Microbiologist Sergei Chachotin (1883 - 1973) is considered one of the pioneers of laser technology and modern cancer research. He worked with the legendary scientist Pavlov and could call himself a friend of Albert Einstein. And yet, the name of Chakhotin has been all but forgotten. A good reason for his great-grandson Boris Hars-Tschachotin to want to find out more about his great-grandfather. The man who was married five times and who lived through the Russian Revolution and two world wars and was at home in many different cities and countries. But probably the most crucial reason for filmmaker Boris Hars-Chakhotin to make a documentary about his great-grandfather was the fact that Sergey's urn has been sitting on top of his son Eugene's closet in Paris for thirty years because the sons can't agree on where and next to which of his wives their father should be buried.

In his documentary Sergei in the Urn, Hars-Tschachotin travels around the globe to four of Sergei's sons-Venya, Eugene, Andrei, and Petya-to talk with them about their father's story. The sometimes very different images the brothers have of Sergej are juxtaposed with excerpts from his unpublished biography, spoken by actor Ulrich Matthes. This not only creates a very multi-faceted picture of a very extraordinary man. It also reveals to the viewer a very complicated family structure, which even thirty years after Sergej's death still seems to be marked by his outsized shadow.

But this documentary journey through the troubled life of Sergei Chakhotin is also a kind of contemporary historical document, as historical events have greatly shaped and continually redirected his life. For example, as the son of a diplomat, he was not banished to Siberia in the wake of the student riots in Moscow in 1902, as many other students were, but merely expelled from the country, which for him was the beginning of his cosmopolitanism and academic career. In Germany, Sicily, Monaco, Paris or Rome he lives at the side of different women also accordingly different lives, which has just also marked his descendants lastingly.

Engagingly staged, here and there spiced with moments of almost bizarre comedy (this already includes the wonderful opening scene), Boris Hars-Tschachotin has staged an exciting as well as entertaining documentary, which is an intimate family portrait and a contemporary historical document in equal measure. Anyone who appreciates sophisticated documentary entertainment should not miss this film.

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp